Today, we pulish the speech he delivered during the ceremony a year ago at the Hague.

Andrey Yurov

The Netherlands Helsinki Committee Award Speech

The Hague, November, 19th, 2015

The first thing we need is solidarity of all the people defending our civilization by promoting values of humanity.

It is a special honour to receive the award in the year when “post-war” world order, the world order which has placed Human Rights above national sovereignty, celebrates its 70th anniversary.

70 years ago, humanity agreed that, to be able to prevent genocides and mass human rights violations, some universalities must be put higher than governments and states.

This also included solidarity in fighting against “double standards” and the approaches which valued any political or economic interests higher than the universal values.

The tragic events we have recently witnessed in Paris, Lebanon, Turkey, and in the sky above the Sinai peninsula, urge us to jointly embark upon the search for systematic and humane answers to the challenges posed by violence and terror.

The second thing we need is solidarity of all the governmental and nongovernmental institutions of the OSCE region in strengthening joint standards and mechanisms of Human Rights defense.

Thus, it is a greater honour for me to deliver the speech in the year of the 70th Anniversary of the United Nations, and of the 40th Anniversary of the OSCE.

Some 20 years ago, it could have seemed that improving Human Dimension standards was a matter of technology, not ideology. But now we know that we are still in the very beginning of the route.

Not only do we see many of the Human Rights institutions failing to work properly -- what we are now becoming witnesses of is numerous attempts to revisit original approaches. This means that the fate of our region depends on the strength of our will to improve current and to establish new institutions for Human Rights defence.

The third thing we need is solidarity of civil societies, their mutual help and support.

This award demonstrates said solidarity on side of the civil society of the Netherlands. Thus, it is a greater pleasure for me to stand here together with Arzu whom I know for more than a decade.

In the upcoming years, both courage and creativity will be needed. We will have to search for brand new approaches to the work we do, we will have to react to new challenges.

Whether or not we are able to change our part of the world for the better in the foreseeable future, depends on our ability to act together for the good of Human Rights.

Thousands of people around the world joined the International Day of Solidarity with Belarus civil society. Human rights defenders, civil activists, politicians, artists and ordinary citizens from 15 countries of the world took part in actions of solidarity on 4 August.

Чалавек можа ўсё. Межаў яго сіле няма, калі наперадзе агонь надзеі.
Гэта вельмі добра ведаюць гуманісты, фанатыкі і закаханыя.
A human being is capable of anything.
There are no limits to his force, if led by the light of hope.
This is very well-known to humanists, fanatics and lovers.
Uladzimir Karatkevich, Belarusian writer

Analytics and Interview

On 16 January 2015 late in the evening the website of the Ministry of Justice published a statement that the NGO Committee Against Torture had been added to the register of non-profit organizations designated as ‘foreign agents’.

Tanya Lokshina is the Russia program director at Human Rights Watch and Honorary Participant of International Youth Human Rights Movement:
As the crisis in Ukraine escalated this spring, the Kremlin’s vicious crackdown on civil society also escalated. Space for independent civic activity in Russia is shrinking dramatically, but international policymakers and the media have been understandably too distracted to do much about it.
Since early spring, it seems as though every week brings a new pernicious law or legislative proposal.

Earlier this year, the correspondent of Youth Human Rights Movement from Germany Jakob Stürmann interviewed Konstantin Baranov, member of the Coordination Council of the International Youth Human Rights Movement. They discussed so called “law against homosexual propaganda” and the overall situation of LGBT in Russia.

CIVIL NEWS

Oleg Sentsov, Olexander Kolchenko, Hennadiy Afanasiev and Oleksiy Chyrniy have been held in Russian jails for two years already under fabricated charges of ‘terrorism’. We consider it being necessary to express solidarity with those who are persecuted due to their pro-Ukrainian views, civic stand and desire for freedom in Russia-annexed Crimea.

Helsinki Committee of Armenia has published “Human Rights in Armenia 2014” Annual Report. The report reflects on the Right to Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association, Torture, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment, Political Persecutions, Freedom of Conscience and Religion, The Rights of the Child, Protection of Labor Rights.

«We have a few questions for you,» a border guard told Sinaver Kadyrov, a Crimean Tatar activist, at the Armyansk checkpoint in northern Crimea on Jan. 23. Kadyrov was on his way to Kherson, in southern Ukraine, to fly to Turkey for medical treatment. It was the beginning of an ordeal that ended with a local court expelling him from Crimea, his home of almost 25 years.